Award-winning crime journalist Paul Anderson, author of the bestselling 'Dirty Dozen', takes you through the chilling criminal slayings that have shocked, and continue to shock Melbourne, linking the players and events that make up Melbourne's underworld crime scene.

Anderson traces the complicated web back to the Painters & Dockers' Union power struggle that claimed at least forty lives between the 1950s and the early 1980s, and delves into the more recent wave of murders that have seen Melbourne become a virtual criminal killing field. The execution of self-styled gangster Alphonse Gangitano in January 1998 sparked a deadly chain-reaction that has so far led to the deaths of a further 26 people and shows no sign of relenting.

While a special police taskforce codenamed 'Purana' has been set up to investigate a number of the slayings and their common links to the lucrative amphetamine trade, the killings continue, and individual motives arise: revenge, greed, overblown pride... and the influence of crime movies. Some members of the warring factions seem to be taking up arms and embarking on bloody conflict with disturbing similarities to their celluloid anti-heroes. From crime scene to funeral, 'Shotgun City' takes you inside the lives of each victim, uncovering the links and offering the ultimate insider's knowledge of Melbourne's brutal underworld war.